Years of drought exacerbated by global warming have left its forests achingly dry and littered with dead trees. Recent conditions have boosted the risks. The house where William Goggia grew up in Paradise. More than 200 structures were destroyed in 2008. Wildfires are a normal part of the forest ecosystem in California, and over the past decade parts of Paradise have been threatened by at least four fires.

When a Starbucks opened several months ago, a local joke went, Paradise had truly arrived.īut one menace was constant. The population skewed towards retirees, but residents say there was also a younger influx escaping real estate prices elsewhere in California. Dating back to the Gold Rush, Paradise was less a garden of earthly delights than a quiet community of 27,000, with homes and trailer parks hidden amid dense stands of pines and oaks. In truth, if this was a utopia it was a mellow sort. “You are ascending into Paradise,” read a road sign on the way into town, a charming spot in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California. Christmas at William Goggia’s family home, which was lost in the fire.

Is there a fire near paradise ca